Asynchronous channel based bus architecture enabling decoupled services

ABSTRACT

In an asynchronous channel based bus architecture enabling decoupled services, there is an asynchronous channel based bus having at least one channel. A first service is coupled to the asynchronous channel based bus, the first service passes messages to and receives messages on the at least one channel. A second service is also coupled to the asynchronous channel based bus, the second service also passes messages to and receive messages on the at least one channel.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority as a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/635,043, filed on Jun. 17, 2017, entitled“ASYNCHRONOUS CHANNEL BASED BUS ARCHITECTURE ENABLING DECOUPLEDSERVICES”, and which is expressly incorporated by reference herein inits entirety. This application is also related to the followingapplications that are assigned to the assignee of the presentapplication, each of which is expressly incorporated by reference hereinin its respective entirety: U.S. application Ser. No. 15/635,015 filedon Jun. 27, 2017, entitled “A Bridge and Asynchronous Channel Based Busto Provide Ul-to-UI Asynchronous Communication,” by Dave Shanley; U.S.application Ser. No. 15/635,053, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,133,696, filed onJun. 27, 2017, entitled “A Bridge, an Asynchronous Channel Based Bus,and a Message Broker to Provide Asynchronous Communication,” by DaveShanley; and U.S. application Ser. No. 15/635,073 filed on Jun. 27,2017, entitled “Schema To Ensure Payload Validity For Communications OnAn Asynchronous Channel Based Bus,” by Dave Shanley.

BACKGROUND

Virtual-machine technology essentially abstracts the hardware resourcesand interfaces of a computer system on behalf of one or multiple virtualmachines, each comprising one or more application programs and anoperating system. The recent emergence of cloud computing services canprovide abstract interfaces to enormous collections of geographicallydispersed data centers, allowing computational service providers todevelop and deploy complex Internet-based services that execute on tensor hundreds of physical servers through abstract cloud-computinginterfaces.

Presently, one challenge when attempting to build separate products ordistributed systems, is sourcing, delivering and sharing multiplestreams of real-time data between multiple layers of middleware and theservices they are serving. Typically developers will employ privateAPI's or SDK's to pull or push data to and from products that talk toone another.

In general, platform to platform communication happens over REST for themost part, some older API's also operate over SOAP. Usually, in orderfor vProduct X's UI to show information from vProduct Y's data , the XUI has to make a request to the X platform, which in turn will make arequest to the Y platform for data and then return that data to the X UIas the response to an XHR request. vProduct Y's UI could in turn do thesame in reverse (if they were integrated in a bidirectional manner).

Further, applications typically don't publish these SDK's and API'sbecause they are really only designed for internal use, therefore theyare proprietary and quickly become technical debt. API changes oftenquickly break the UI completely, when there are multiple integrationsacross a number of products, it becomes a slow, painful and drawn outprocess to align everyone to the new API changes.

Some modern UI frameworks allow for dependency injection across UI's,and as such, developers create services that are injected intocontrollers. Services often have other services injected into them also.While this pattern works for smaller applications, it quickly becomesdeleteriously unmanageable as the application grows in scope andversion. For example, Background FIG. 1 illustrates a present example ofservices and views that have become tightly coupled and significantlydifficult to manage.

Thus, modularity becomes difficult to maintain when tens of services areinjected in multiple areas.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and form a part ofthe Description of Embodiments, illustrate various embodiments of thesubject matter and, together with the Description of Embodiments, serveto explain principles of the subject matter discussed below. Unlessspecifically noted, the drawings referred to in this Brief Descriptionof Drawings should be understood as not being drawn to scale. Herein,like items are labeled with like item numbers.

Background FIG. 1 illustrates an application flow diagram includingservices and views that have become tightly coupled and significantlydifficult to manage.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example computer system upon which embodiments ofthe present invention can be implemented.

FIG. 3 illustrates a peer system having an asynchronous channel basedbus architecture enabling decoupled services, in accordance with variousembodiments.

FIG. 4 illustrates the architecture for a bridge transparently extendinga bus between two applications, in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 5 illustrates the architecture for a bridge transparently extendinga bus to and from the message broker, in accordance with variousembodiments.

FIG. 6 illustrates the architecture of a plurality of differentapplications all communicating via the distributed buses, in accordancewith various embodiments.

FIG. 7 illustrates a flow diagram of a method for using an asynchronouschannel based bus architecture to enable decoupled services, accordingto various embodiments.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Reference will now be made in detail to various embodiments of thesubject matter, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanyingdrawings. While various embodiments are discussed herein, it will beunderstood that they are not intended to limit to these embodiments. Onthe contrary, the presented embodiments are intended to coveralternatives, modifications and equivalents, which may be includedwithin the spirit and scope the various embodiments as defined by theappended claims. Furthermore, in this Description of Embodiments,numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of embodiments of the present subject matter. However,embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. In otherinstances, well known methods, procedures, components, and circuits havenot been described in detail as not to unnecessarily obscure aspects ofthe described embodiments.

Notation and Nomenclature

Some portions of the detailed descriptions which follow are presented interms of procedures, logic blocks, processing and other symbolicrepresentations of operations on data bits within a computer memory.These descriptions and representations are the means used by thoseskilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey thesubstance of their work to others skilled in the art. In the presentapplication, a procedure, logic block, process, or the like, isconceived to be one or more self-consistent procedures or instructionsleading to a desired result. The procedures are those requiring physicalmanipulations of physical quantities. Usually, although not necessarily,these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capableof being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwisemanipulated in an electronic device.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise as apparent from the followingdiscussions, it is appreciated that throughout the description ofembodiments, discussions utilizing terms such as “connecting,”“displaying,” “receiving,” “providing,” “determining,” “generating,”“establishing,” “managing,” “extending,” “creating,” “migrating,”“effectuating,” or the like, refer to the actions and processes of anelectronic computing device or system such as: a host processor, aprocessor, a memory, a virtual storage area network (VSAN), avirtualization management server or a virtual machine (VM), amongothers, of a virtualization infrastructure or a computer system of adistributed computing system, or the like, or a combination thereof. Itshould be appreciated that the virtualization infrastructure may beon-premises (e.g., local) or off-premises (e.g., remote or cloud-based),or a combination thereof. The electronic device manipulates andtransforms data represented as physical (electronic and/or magnetic)quantities within the electronic device's registers and memories intoother data similarly represented as physical quantities within theelectronic device's memories or registers or other such informationstorage, transmission, processing, or display components.

Embodiments described herein may be discussed in the general context ofprocessor-executable instructions residing on some form ofnon-transitory processor-readable medium, such as program modules,executed by one or more computers or other devices. Generally, programmodules include routines, programs, objects, components, datastructures, etc., that perform particular tasks or implement particularabstract data types. The functionality of the program modules may becombined or distributed as desired in various embodiments.

In the figures, a single block may be described as performing a functionor functions; however, in actual practice, the function or functionsperformed by that block may be performed in a single component or acrossmultiple components, and/or may be performed using hardware, usingsoftware, or using a combination of hardware and software. To clearlyillustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, variousillustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and steps have beendescribed generally in terms of their functionality. Whether suchfunctionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon theparticular application and design constraints imposed on the overallsystem. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality invarying ways for each particular application, but such implementationdecisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from thescope of the present disclosure. Also, the example mobile electronicdevice described herein may include components other than those shown,including well-known components.

The techniques described herein may be implemented in hardware,software, firmware, or any combination thereof, unless specificallydescribed as being implemented in a specific manner. Any featuresdescribed as modules or components may also be implemented together inan integrated logic device or separately as discrete but interoperablelogic devices. If implemented in software, the techniques may berealized at least in part by a non-transitory processor-readable storagemedium comprising instructions that, when executed, perform one or moreof the methods described herein. The non-transitory processor-readabledata storage medium may form part of a computer program product, whichmay include packaging materials.

The non-transitory processor-readable storage medium may comprise randomaccess memory (RAM) such as synchronous dynamic random access memory(SDRAM), read only memory (ROM), non-volatile random access memory(NVRAM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM),FLASH memory, other known storage media, and the like. The techniquesadditionally, or alternatively, may be realized at least in part by aprocessor-readable communication medium that carries or communicatescode in the form of instructions or data structures and that can beaccessed, read, and/or executed by a computer or other processor.

The various illustrative logical blocks, modules, circuits andinstructions described in connection with the embodiments disclosedherein may be executed by one or more processors, such as one or moremotion processing units (MPUs), sensor processing units (SPUs), hostprocessor(s) or core(s) thereof, digital signal processors (DSPs),general purpose microprocessors, application specific integratedcircuits (ASICs), application specific instruction set processors(ASIPs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), or other equivalentintegrated or discrete logic circuitry. The term “processor,” as usedherein may refer to any of the foregoing structures or any otherstructure suitable for implementation of the techniques describedherein. In addition, in some aspects, the functionality described hereinmay be provided within dedicated software modules or hardware modulesconfigured as described herein. Also, the techniques could be fullyimplemented in one or more circuits or logic elements. A general purposeprocessor may be a microprocessor, but in the alternative, the processormay be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or statemachine. A processor may also be implemented as a combination ofcomputing devices, e.g., a combination of an SPU/MPU and amicroprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or moremicroprocessors in conjunction with an SPU core, MPU core, or any othersuch configuration.

Overview of Discussion

Discussion begins with a description of an example computer systemenvironment, upon which embodiments of the present invention may beimplemented. Example systems having an asynchronous channel based busarchitecture enabling decoupled services are then described.

Modern computing can be considered to be a collection of many differentlevels of abstraction above the physical computing-hardware level thatincludes physical computer systems, data-storage systems and devices,and communications networks.

The biggest challenge when attempting to build integration betweenseparate products or distributed systems, is sourcing, delivering andsharing multiple streams of real-time data between multiple layers ofmiddleware and the consumers and producers they are serving. Typically,companies such as VMware employ private API's or SDK's to pull or pushdata to and from products that talk to one another.

Example embodiments described herein provide an asynchronous channelbased bus architecture (Bifröst) that enables decoupled services. In oneembodiment, Bifröst is a reusable component written in TypeScript. Itmakes use of technologies such as Simple (or Streaming) Text OrientatedMessaging Protocol (STOMP), ReactiveX/Stream based programming, and thelike, to build a completely decoupled, fully asynchronous, distributedmessage bus. The Bifröst allows any UI, service, microservice, orplatform to send and receive asynchronous messages between one anotherall without requiring any additional technology or custom integrations.Existing and legacy applications and middleware written in any language(e.g., Java) can also use the Bifröst architecture to send and receivemessages to UI's and/or other services. In one embodiment, the libraryis delivered by npm and integrates seamlessly into anyJavaScript/Typescript or Angular 4+ based application. In anotherembodiment, the Bifröst is written in Java and can be used by any Java8+ application. In both embodiments, the API's match as closely aspossible.

In general, STOMP refers to an interoperable wire format used todramatically simplify the communication between clients and messagebrokers across a variety of languages, brokers and platforms. It isdesigned as an alternative to more complex protocols like advancedmessage queuing protocol (AMQP).

Importantly, the embodiments of the present invention, as will bedescribed below, provide an approach for asynchronous communicationwhich differs significantly from the conventional processes used in APIcommunication. In conventional approaches, API frameworks allow fordependency injection across API's. Normally developers create servicesthat are injected into controllers. Services often have other servicesinjected into them also. Whilst this pattern works for smallerapplications, it quickly becomes unmanageable with large applicationslike the vSphere Webclient. Services and views quickly become tightlycoupled and modularity becomes difficult to maintain when tens ofservices are injected in multiple areas. Such conventional approachesare deleteriously affected by API updates or changes, tedious,time-consuming, and often result in clunky client side code with APIwork arounds.

Previously, any component that had a high number of service dependencieswould normally require a mock for those services when running unittests.

However, the present embodiments, as will be described and explainedbelow in detail, provide a previously unknown procedure for utilizing anasynchronous channel based bus that enables decoupled services. Whenusing the architecture described herein, test mocks are no longerrequired. Writing tests with full coverage becomes a much simpler andless time consuming task. That is, when the dependencies betweenservices, controllers and views are reduced down to a single entity, adeveloper is no longer required to create mocks for previously injectedservices. Unit tests can truly focus on just testing the logic of theclass or component.

The asynchronous channel based bus provides two core services. The firstis to allow the dynamic creation and subsequent destruction of channelswithin the bus. The second is to allow any actor to publish and/orsubscribe to those channels and broadcast messages. The bridge is acompletely decoupled module that depends only on the bus. Its functionis to extend specific channels on the bus out to an application'smessage broker, platform or designated microservice. These extendedchannels are referred to herein as Galactic channels.

As will be described in detail, the various embodiments of the presentinvention do not merely implement conventional API communicationprocesses on a computer. Instead, the various embodiments of the presentinvention, in part, provide a previously unknown procedure for enablingdecoupled services in an application. Hence, embodiments of the presentinvention provide a novel process for application construction which isnecessarily rooted in computer technology to overcome a problemspecifically arising in the realm of API communication between separateproducts or distributed systems.

Example Computer System Environment

With reference now to FIG. 2, all or portions of some embodimentsdescribed herein are composed of computer-readable andcomputer-executable instructions that reside, for example, incomputer-usable/computer-readable storage media of a computer system.That is, FIG. 2 illustrates one example of a type of computer (computersystem 200) that can be used in accordance with or to implement variousembodiments which are discussed herein. It is appreciated that computersystem 200 of FIG. 2 is only an example and that embodiments asdescribed herein can operate on or within a number of different computersystems including, but not limited to, general purpose networkedcomputer systems, embedded computer systems, routers, switches, serverdevices, client devices, various intermediate devices/nodes, stand alonecomputer systems, media centers, handheld computer systems, multi-mediadevices, virtual machines, virtualization management servers, and thelike. Computer system 200 of FIG. 2 is well adapted to having peripheraltangible computer-readable storage media 102 such as, for example, anelectronic flash memory data storage device, a floppy disc, a compactdisc, digital versatile disc, other disc based storage, universal serialbus “thumb” drive, removable memory card, and the like coupled thereto.The tangible computer-readable storage media is non-transitory innature.

System 200 of FIG. 2 includes an address/data bus 104 for communicatinginformation, and a processor 106A coupled with bus 104 for processinginformation and instructions. As depicted in FIG. 2, system 200 is alsowell suited to a multi-processor environment in which a plurality ofprocessors 106A, 106B, and 106C are present. Conversely, system 200 isalso well suited to having a single processor such as, for example,processor 106A. Processors 106A, 106B, and 106C may be any of varioustypes of microprocessors. System 200 also includes data storage featuressuch as a computer usable volatile memory 108, e.g., random accessmemory (RAM), coupled with bus 104 for storing information andinstructions for processors 106A, 106B, and 106C. System 200 alsoincludes computer usable non-volatile memory 110, e.g., read only memory(ROM), coupled with bus 104 for storing static information andinstructions for processors 106A, 106B, and 106C. Also present in system200 is a data storage unit 112 (e.g., a magnetic or optical disc anddisc drive) coupled with bus 104 for storing information andinstructions. System 200 also includes an alphanumeric input device 114including alphanumeric and function keys coupled with bus 104 forcommunicating information and command selections to processor 106A orprocessors 106A, 106B, and 106C. System 200 also includes an cursorcontrol device 116 coupled with bus 104 for communicating user inputinformation and command selections to processor 106A or processors 106A,106B, and 106C. In one embodiment, system 200 also includes a displaydevice 118 coupled with bus 104 for displaying information.

Referring still to FIG. 2, display device 118 of FIG. 2 may be a liquidcrystal device (LCD), light emitting diode display (LED) device, cathoderay tube (CRT), plasma display device, a touch screen device, or otherdisplay device suitable for creating graphic images and alphanumericcharacters recognizable to a user. Cursor control device 116 allows thecomputer user to dynamically signal the movement of a visible symbol(cursor) on a display screen of display device 118 and indicate userselections of selectable items displayed on display device 118. Manyimplementations of cursor control device 116 are known in the artincluding a trackball, mouse, touch pad, touch screen, joystick orspecial keys on alphanumeric input device 114 capable of signalingmovement of a given direction or manner of displacement. Alternatively,it will be appreciated that a cursor can be directed and/or activatedvia input from alphanumeric input device 114 using special keys and keysequence commands. System 200 is also well suited to having a cursordirected by other means such as, for example, voice commands. In variousembodiments, alphanumeric input device 114, cursor control device 116,and display device 118, or any combination thereof (e.g., user interfaceselection devices), may collectively operate to provide a UI 130 underthe direction of a processor (e.g., processor 106A or processors 106A,106B, and 106C). UI 130 allows user to interact with system 100 throughgraphical representations presented on display device 118 by interactingwith alphanumeric input device 114 and/or cursor control device 116.

System 200 also includes an I/O device 120 for coupling system 200 withexternal entities. For example, in one embodiment, I/O device 120 is amodem for enabling wired or wireless communications between system 200and an external network such as, but not limited to, the Internet.

Referring still to FIG. 2, various other components are depicted forsystem 200. Specifically, when present, an operating system 122,applications 124, modules 126, and data 128 are shown as typicallyresiding in one or some combination of computer usable volatile memory108 (e.g., RAM), computer usable non-volatile memory 110 (e.g., ROM),and data storage unit 112. In some embodiments, all or portions ofvarious embodiments described herein are stored, for example, as anapplication 124 and/or module 126 in memory locations within RAM 108,computer-readable storage media within data storage unit 112, peripheralcomputer-readable storage media 102, and/or other tangiblecomputer-readable storage media.

Bus

FIG. 3 illustrates a peer system having an asynchronous channel basedbus architecture enabling decoupled services in accordance with anembodiment. Although a simplified two peer system 300 is shown, it isexemplary. The system of FIG. 3 may have any number of peers andchannels.

FIG. 3 includes a bus 410, a consumer 420, a producer (or peer) 430, abus channel 440, request 455 and response 460. The use of bus 410 offersarchitectures a simple, yet elegant way to share information betweenpublishers and subscribers across a local or distributed system. Bus 410creates a system of consumer(s) 420 and producer(s) 430. Theasynchronous nature of bus 410 is ideal for UI's, as well asmicroservices.

In one embodiment, bus 410 creates a peer to peer (P2P) architecturebetween all components, thereby removing the need to keep adding hops toa call stack and increasing blocked calls. Bus 410 allows each messageto be performed in small asynchronous units of work, that clears thecall stack and lets another actor process or send a message, or the UIto re-render a component. Bus 410 essentially allows every message to beprocessed as a cycle of the event loop (a core part of a browser) or themain application thread instead of being a blocked call in a chain.

The channel based bus 410 that provides two core services. The first isto allow the dynamic creation and subsequent destruction of channel(s)440 within bus 410. The second is to allow any actor (e.g., consumer(s)420 and/or producer(s) 430) to publish and/or subscribe to thosechannel(s) 440 and broadcast messages. Operation is analogous with achat system like Slack or IRC. A channel 440 can be requested by anyactor to which bus 410 is visible, if the channel 440 doesn't exist, itis created. In one embodiment, when there are no more subscribers to achannel 440, the channel 440 is destroyed. Bus 410 allows actors whichmainly consist of services and controllers, to send and receive messages455 and 460 between each other. These messages 455 and 460 can be anytype of data such as objects, strings, arrays, streams, collections, ormaps.

As stated herein, actors can be considered consumer(s) 420, producer(s)430, or both. Consumer(s) 420 can issue requests 416 and listen forresponses 419, producer(s) 430 can listen for requests 417 and issueresponses 418, As long as an actor can see bus 410, they are able tocommunicate with any other actor within the local or remote system.

In one embodiment, a consumer(s) 420 (or something that needs data) canmake a request for data by sending an outbound request message 455 tothe topic channel 440 on bus 410. Request message 455 will be broadcastto any subscribed actors listening to request messages on that samechannel 440. In this example, #metrics is used as the topic channel(s)440.

A producer(s) 430 provides data and listens for outbound requests on itstopic channel 440. Once the producer(s) 430 receives the request message455, it can perform whatever operations it requires. When theproducer(s) 430 is ready, it sends an inbound response message 460 tothe topic channel 440 on bus 410. The consumer(s) 420 is subscribed to#metrics channel 440 also, but is only listening to inbound responsemessages 460. The consumer(s) 420 will pick up the broadcast message andbe able to continue on.

In one embodiment, all of bus 410 activity is handled in a non-blockingand asynchronous manner. In one embodiment, bus 410 makes use of aReactiveX framework as the foundation. This facilitates theasynchronous/stream based communication. In so doing, bus 410 enablestrue decoupling of components and services inside applications. Bus 410becomes the only dependency and is also context neutral. In other words,bus 410 is unaware of the application(s) it's embedded in.

For example, consumer(s) 420 should be able to hop into a channel 440,send a request on the channel. Meanwhile, producer(s) 430 that can meetthe request is also listening on the channel. The producer(s) 430receives the request 455 and then provides the request response 460 onthe channel. Consumer 420 will receive the request response 460 on thechannel.

Thus, in one embodiment, any component on the bus 410 can talk to eachother. They can talk on private channels or on public channels.

For example, a REST service (e.g., producer 430) listens to messages ona REST channel designed for components (e.g., consumer 420) that want tosend out a REST response to an API. A component will say on a RESTchannel, I want to make a call, go get me some VMs or go get me someusers. The component (e.g., consumer 420) that sends the request willthen go back to idle. The REST service (e.g., producer 430) will takethe message and make the XHR/HTTP call needed to go get the data; oncethe data is returned to the REST service, the REST service will take thereturned data and put the data on the message bus on the REST channel.The component that made the call will note the returned data on the RESTchannel.

In so doing, the component that made the call does not need to knowabout the REST service, HTTP or the API. Doesn't need to know where thedata comes from, how it is processed, or who gets it. It merely needs tolisten for responses on the channel. In other words, services,controllers and views have all been decoupled. Instead of communicatingwith each other through dependency injection or the like, theycommunicate through message channels on the bus 410. The messaging isall asynchronous so there is no sitting and waiting, only when somethingelse comes down the channel will the application wake up and starthandling it.

In one embodiment, the component can send the request on a first channel(e.g., a public channel) and further request that the response be senton a second separate channel (e.g., a private channel).

In one embodiment, there is no global list of channels, no whitelist ofchannels or the like received by the components coupled with bus 410. Itis a multi-cast communication channel that can be created on demand by aconsumer 420 or producer 430. If no one is listening on the channel thennothing will be sent and the messages are dropped from the bus.

In another embodiment, a request to bus 410 can be made by a consumer420 and/or producer 430 to provide the different channels available onthe bus. In another embodiment, there may be a registration, a list ofpre-defined channels, etc.

Bridge

FIG. 4 illustrates the architecture 400 for a bridge 510 (a and breferred to in the following description as bridge 510 unless otherwisenoted) transparently extending bus 410 between two applications (e.g.,application A and application B). In one embodiment, bridge 510 is acompletely decoupled module that depends only on bus 410 (a and breferred to in the following description as bus 410 unless otherwisenoted). The function of bridge 510 is to extend specific channel(s) 440on bus 410 out to an application's message broker 555 (broker 555 may bea broker, platform, designated microservice or the like). In general,these extended channel(s) 440 are referred to herein as Galacticchannels.

In one embodiment, bridge 510 operates by making use of a monitor API520 that bus 410 provides. Monitor API 520 broadcasts channel 440 eventsrelating to creation, subscription, un-subscription and destruction.Events relating to Galactic channels are what bridge 510 really caresabout. In one embodiment, bridge 510 ignores all non-Galactic events. Inone embodiment, to identify #local vs Galactic or extended channel(s)440, the following hash convention plus snakecase is used:#local-channel vs Galactic-channel (no hash). However, it should beappreciated that there are no specific limitations on the naming oflocal vs Galactic channels, the previous convention is merely one of anumber of different possible ways to delineate the difference betweenthe local and Galactic channel.

FIG. 5 illustrates the architecture 500 for a bridge 510 transparentlyextending a bus to and from the message broker. One embodimentillustrates how bridge 510 transparently subscribes to Galactic channel640 g and then proxies request message(s) 455 and response message(s)460 to and from the message broker 555. It achieves this by listeningfor Galactic channel 640 g traffic, converting request message 455 andresponse message 460 to and from STOMP client 610 and then sending andreceiving messages 455 and 460 over a Socket 620. It further ignoreslocal channel 640 l traffic.

In one embodiment, socket 620 is a WebSocket. In general, when a livefeed/stream is needed, a browser (or platform) can use sockets (e.g.,WebSockets or regular sockets) to create a bidirectional string (it isnormally unidirectional). Live feed via the socket 620 is used to sendlive feed updates (metric, notification, alert, network change, etc.) tothe UI and for the UI be able to capture the live feed updates.

When bridge 510 receives a Galactic channel 640 g event, it will act asa global broker for that channel and extend the channel out to messagebroker 555, another service that supports STOMP, or the like. In oneembodiment, bus 410 has no knowledge that bridge 510 is operating,neither do the peers (e.g., producer(s) 430 and consumer(s) 420) sendingrequests and responses. Bridge 510 handles all of the proxying ofmessages transparently. In other words, bridge 510 acts as the gluebetween bus 410 and multiple STOMP enabled message broker(s) 555,connected over WebSocket 620.

In one embodiment, bridge 510 has benefits that hide and abstract a lotof complexity. For example, bridge 510 transparently handles all of theWebSocket 620 and session management across multiple message broker(s)555. In one embodiment, bridge 510 reads raw STOMP frames being sentfrom message broker 555 and then parses and distributes the messages tothe Galactic channel(s) 640 g that match the destination of the message.In order to maintain the Galactic channel organization, bridge 510subscribes to a topic or queue that matches the name of the Galacticchannel 640 g on bus 410. Once subscribed, bridge 510 will relay anymessages 455 and 460 sent to or from any Galactic channel 640 g and themapped topics/queues.

In one embodiment, bridge 510 handles message broker 555 communicationsvia an interoperable wire format such as STOMP 1.2. That is, messages455 and 460 sent on Galactic channel(s) 640 g are marshalled andunmarshalled into STOMP commands that are both transmitted and receivedby message broker 555. In one embodiment, bus 410 is not aware of STOMPcommands; instead, bridge 510 takes care of it all.

For example, when data is desired (e.g., metrics, Virtual machines, userdata, etc.), the component can subscribe to all the channels locally,bridge 510 will extend the channels to their own topics on the messagebroker 555, and, in one embodiment, all through a single socket 620.That is, in one embodiment, every subscribed channel by the component ispassed through the single socket 620.

The bridge will receive the response messages from the message brokerand then provide the response messages to the local channel related tothe initial request. Thus, bridge 510 allows multiple systems to talk toeach other without knowing they are talking to remote systems. Theythink they are talking to a local message bus but they are actuallyextended to any number of systems.

For example, they are sending things on local channels 640 l or Galacticchannels 640 g, if it is sent on a Galactic channel 640 g, the monitorAPI 520 realizes it is a message 455 on a Galactic channel 640 g, takesthe message 455 to bridge 510 through the STOMP client 610 and over theWebSocket 620 and transports it to the broker 555 and anyone listening.A listening component coupled with the broker/platform 555 will receivethe message 455 and send a response 460 back to the WebSocket 620,through the STOMP client 610 up to the bridge 510 and the bridge 510will put the response 460 on the proper channel 640 g.

In one embodiment, bus 410 and bridge 510 don't require any additionaltechnologies other than the language they are written in and theReactiveX framework to operate. An existing application message broker555 (like Spring) could instantly be adapted to communicate over STOMP.In one embodiment, bus 410 and bridge 510 inside the Bifröst is writtenin TypeScript and Java and depends on reactive extensions for JavaScript(RxJS) and Java (RxJava). In general, the STOMP implementation does notrequire any third party libraries as it is custom built, such as byusing the STOMP 1.2 specification.

In other words, using bridge 510, the service will send the informationon the channel, the bridge will be able to translate the information(via the STOMP) before it is put on the broker/platform and translatethe response before it is put back on the channel to the service. In sodoing, each different service can universally communicate. Therebyproviding a real-time distributed architecture where producers andconsumers can talk to each other asynchronously by any number of remotesystems and local systems. Thus, using Bifröst, the concept of local andremote no longer matters; resulting in scalability, distribution,extension, speed, performance, etc.

That is, bridge 510 allows the application to connect to multiplemessage broker(s) 555 at the same time and create and consume multiplestreams of data that can be bound together to create new streams.Message broker(s) 555 can be distributed/relayed and expand Galacticchannels 640 g out across clouds and DMZ's. Moreover, messages 455 and460 can be relayed between message broker(s) 555 to connect services andUI's across different networks, all transparently.

In general, broker 555 can be a single broker or a pool of brokers.Messages are stateless. Further, in one embodiment, the message(s) arequeued by the broker so that the component will not miss a message if itis down/away/occupied, etc. In one embodiment, bridge 510 has a socketwatchdog that will reconnect if there is an error or disconnect betweenbridge 510 and message broker 555.

Decoupled System Communication

FIG. 6 illustrates the architecture 600 of a plurality of differentapplications all communicating via the distributed buses. In oneembodiment, four different applications (A-D) are communicating via thedistributed buses 410 a-410 d, two applications (A and D) are producingcontent, another two (B and C) are consuming. In one embodiment,application D is connected to the distributed bus 410 via a relay 677.

The buses 410 a-410 d in combination with the bridges 510 a-510 d,provide the mechanisms to handle multiple streams of data inside anapplication (via channel(s) 640-642 on the different buses) and alsoprovides the ability to distribute and manage these streams acrossapplications. For example, bus 410 a has three Galactic channels640-642, bridge 510 a (and the components as shown in detail in FIG. 5)provides the content to bridges 510 b-510 d via broker 555 a and broker555 b via relay 677. As shown in FIG. 6, channel 640 has consumer 420A1in Application A, consumer 420D in Application D, and producer 430B inApplication B able to provide and receive messages thereon via themonitoring provided by bridge 510 a, bridge 510 b and bridge 510 crespectively.

Channel 641 has consumer 420A2 in Application A and producer 430 c 1 inApplication C able to provide and receive messages thereon via themonitoring provided by bridge 510 a and bridge 510 c respectively.

Channel 642 has consumer 420A3 in Application A and producer 430 c 2 inApplication C able to provide and receive messages thereon via themonitoring provided by bridge 510 a and bridge 510 c respectively.

Thus, when the dependencies between services, controllers and views arereduced down to a single entity, a developer is no longer required tocreate mocks for previously injected services. Unit tests can trulyfocus on just testing the logic of the class or component. Previously,any component that had a high number of service dependencies wouldnormally require a mock for those services when running unit tests. Whenusing bus 410, these mocks are no longer required. Writing tests withfull coverage becomes a much simpler and less time consuming task.

In other words, each component becomes decoupled from one another. Theyare no longer calling each other via public API's that they expose. Bysimply hooking into the Bus and listening for requests on specificchannels, the component can avoid having to worry about changing APIsignatures of its peers, or having to register with one another. The Busallows multiple components to be composed into modules, with thepossibility of being lazily loaded in and out of an application ondemand.

An application can load in a module that provides a required service,once the module is loaded, all the modules components initialize andstart to join channels on bus 410, ready to engage. Any component insidethe parent application that needs a service from the newly loaded modulecan just start sending requests. The loaded module will respondaccordingly. This benefit allows the design of modular applications,composed out of decoupled modules that act as microservices.

Since service call chaining no longer exists, all operations can happenasynchronously which provides a huge performance improvement overblocking chained calls. Moreover, it also allows developers to build newarchitectures that focus on a stream and event based/reactive world.Further, it facilitates designers to construct new experiences based onstream driven data, particularly if the data is live streaming viabridge 510.

In one embodiment, services can make requests and handle responses withjust a few lines of code. For example, request message(s) 455 andresponse message(s) 460 can be handled with class methods, or closures.E.g.:

const bus = new MessagebusService( ); /* will log ‘response: echo[hello!]’ */ bus.respondOnce(“#local-channel”).generate( (request:string) => { return “echo [“ + request + ”]”; } );bus.requestOnce(“#local-channel”, “hello!”).handle( (response: string)=> { console.log(“response: ” + echo); } };

In one embodiment, bus(es) 410 (a-d) creates a peer-to-peer architecturebetween all components and removes the need to keep adding hops to acall stack and increasing blocked calls. Bus 410 allows each message tobe performed in small asynchronous units of work, that clears the callstack and lets another actor process or send a message, or the UI tore-render a component. In other words, bus 410 essentially allows everymessage to be processed as a cycle of the Event Loop (core component ofthe browser) or as a single cycle on the main application thread insteadof being a blocked call in a chain.

In one embodiment, bridge(s) 510(a-d) allows components using bus 410 totreat distributed (Galactic) channels as regular channel(s) 440.Moreover, the process of how those messages are broadcast to remoteconsumers is completely abstracted away from the developer. That is,there is no requirement to learn the complexities of WebSocket 620communications, STOMP, or handling multiple streams with data arrivingasynchronously.

In other words, individual components inside an application or servicecan communicate directly with other services or components locally orremotely via bridge 510. In one embodiment, no other component needs toknow about the conversations happening between other services,components, message broker(s) 555, or headless microservices. Thisallows a selection menu in a UI (or other application) to request dataover a Galactic channel 640 g from a microservice running somewhere.Only the dropdown component and the microservice would know about theconversation and the rest of the application could remain idle.

The Bifröst architecture allows a browser based UI, a non-browser basedapplication, or a microservice to talk directly to a message broker 555over socket 620. It further allows any other non-browser basedapplication or microservice to communicate with a message broker 555using standard sockets and the same protocol to send and receivemessages is used.

The ability to directly connect to the broker means the need formiddleware goes away. A UI, or other application, no longer needs amonolithic platform to serve its data needs, or connect to the brokerand proxy messages on its behalf. The Bridge allows the application toconnect to multiple message brokers at the same time and create andconsume multiple streams of data that can be bound together to createnew streams. Moreover, message brokers can be distributed/relayed andexpand Galactic channels out across clouds and DMZ's. Messages can berelayed between brokers to connect services and UI's across differentnetworks, all transparently.

In other words, The Bifröst provides the mechanisms to handle multiplestreams of data inside an application (via channels on the bus) and alsoprovides the ability to distribute and manage these streams acrossapplications. In so doing, architects can now design systems without theconcern of distributed control planes or worrying about integrations andAPI's. User experience designers can imagine UI's and workflows composedfrom multiple streams of data from different applications andmicroservices. Dashboards can now source information from as manyservices as can be supported. The Bifröst allows designers anddevelopers to create single UI's for applications that consume dataacross multiple products or even across entire networks.

With a distributed Galactic bus, applications only need to worry abouttwo things, which channel(s) 640-642 to ask for and receive the data.The data could be supplied by another application connected to the samebroker on the same Galactic channel or on a different broker connectedto the same Galactic channel. Thus, bus 410 and bridge 510 that make upthe Bifröst allows for applications to be modularly constructed,decoupled, asynchronous and lazily loaded.

Example Methods of Operation

FIG. 7 illustrates a flow diagram 700 of an example method for using anasynchronous channel based bus architecture to enable decoupledservices, according to various embodiments. Procedures of the methodwill be described with reference to elements and/or components of FIGS.4-6. It is appreciated that in some embodiments, the procedures may beperformed in a different order than described, that some of thedescribed procedures may not be performed, and/or that one or moreadditional procedures to those described may be performed. Flow diagram700 includes some procedures that, in various embodiments, are carriedout by one or more processors under the control of computer-readable andcomputer-executable instructions that are stored on non-transitorycomputer-readable storage media. It is further appreciated that one ormore procedures described in flow diagram 700 may be implemented inhardware, or a combination of hardware with firmware and/or software.

With reference to 710 of flow diagram 700 and to FIGS. 3-6, oneembodiment providing an asynchronous channel based bus 410 having atleast one channel 440. In one embodiment, a dynamic creation of aplurality of channels within bus 410 is allowed. Further, a subsequentdestruction of one or more of the plurality of channels within bus 410is also allowed.

Referring now to 715 of flow diagram 700 and to FIGS. 3-6, oneembodiment hooks a first service 420 into the at least one channel 440on the asynchronous channel based bus 410, the first service 440 to passmessages 455 to 416 and receive 419 messages 460 on the at least onechannel 440.

Referring now to 720 of flow diagram 700 and to FIGS. 3-6, oneembodiment hooks a second service 430 into the at least one channel 440on the asynchronous channel based bus 410, the second service 430 toreceive 417 messages 455 on and pass messages 460 to 418 the at leastone channel 440.

One embodiment allows a service (e.g., consumer(s) 420 and/orproducer(s) 430) to publish to, and receive from, any of the pluralityof channels of bus 410 and additionally allows a controller (e.g.,consumer(s) 420 and/or producer(s) 430) to publish to, and receive from,any of the plurality of channels of bus 410.

In one embodiment, prior to hooking into the at least one channel 440,the first service 420 and the second service 430 do not have to changeAPI signatures. In one embodiment, prior to hooking into the at leastone channel 440, the first service 420 and the second service 430 do nothave to register with one another.

In one embodiment, each message 455 from the first service 420 and eachmessage 460 from the second service 430 is provided on the busasynchronously, such that no call chaining exists between the firstservice 420 and the second service 430.

One embodiment, communicatively couples a bridge 510 to the at least oneGalactic channel (e.g., one of 640-642) of the asynchronous channelbased bus 410 and distributes, via the bridge, at least one message onthe at least one Galactic channel (e.g., one of 640-642) to a differentGalactic channel (e.g., another of 640-642).

One embodiment receives, at bridge 510, every message (e.g., message455) sent on the at least one Galactic channel 640 g. For example,bridge 510 will monitor the broadcast of the monitor API 520 for everyGalactic channel event on bus 410. In one embodiment, bridge 510 willignore the broadcast of the monitor API 520 with respect to localchannel events (e.g., local channel 640 l).

In one embodiment, bridge 510 will monitor every Galactic channel on bus410 and receive every message sent on every Galactic channel of bus 410.

One embodiment converts, via a message translator (e.g., STOMP client610) coupled with bridge 510, every message 455 sent on the at least oneGalactic channel 640 g from a channel message format used by the atleast one Galactic channel 640 g into a common message format.

In one embodiment, bridge 510 will convert, via the message translator(e.g., STOMP client 610) coupled with bridge 510, every message receivedfrom every Galactic channel 640 g from the message format used by eachGalactic channel of bus 410 to a common message format.

In one embodiment, bridge 510 simultaneously distributes the least onemessage on the at least one Galactic channel 640 g to a plurality ofmessage brokers (e.g., 555 a, 555 b, etc.).

In one embodiment, the plurality of message brokers (e.g., 555 a, 555 b,etc.) redistribute the at least one message 455 to a plurality ofbridges (e.g., 510 a, 510 b, 510 c, 510 d, etc.), each of the pluralityof bridges (e.g., 510 a, 510 b, 510 c, 510 d, etc.) coupled to adifferent asynchronous channel based bus(e.g., 410 a, 410 b, 410 c, 410d, etc.), each different asynchronous channel based bus (e.g., 410 a,410 b, 410 c, 410 d, etc.) having at least one Galactic channel (e.g.,640, 641, 642, etc.) thereon.

Thus, the ability to directly connect to the broker means the need formiddleware goes away. A UI, or other application, no longer needs amonolithic platform to serve its data needs, or connect to the brokerand proxy messages on its behalf. The Bridge (e.g., 510 a, 510 b, 510 c,510 d, etc.) allows the application to connect to multiple messagebrokers (e.g., 555 a, 555 b, etc.) at the same time and create andconsume multiple streams of data that can be bound together to createnew streams. Moreover, message brokers (e.g., 555 a, 555 b, etc.) can bedistributed/relayed and expand Galactic channels e.g., 640, 641, 642,etc.) out across clouds 677 and DMZ's. Messages can be relayed betweenbrokers (e.g., 555 a, 555 b, etc.) to connect services and UI's (e.g.,420A1-A3, 430B, 430 c 1-c 2, 420D, etc.) across different networks(e.g., A, B, C, D, etc.), all transparently.

In other words, The Bifröst provides the mechanisms to handle multiplestreams of data inside an application (via channels on the bus) and alsoprovides the ability to distribute and manage these streams acrossapplications.

Conclusion

The Bifröst provides a solution to the single pane of glass UI problem.Embodiments provide a mental shift for developers over tostream/reactive based programming a lot easier. It facilitates morerapid development of complex reactive style experiences without theinvestment required to understand the lower level intricacies.

The Bifröst provides a turbocharger for UI and service architectures insoftware as a service (SaaS) based world that demands applications andservices operate in a distributed manner.

The examples set forth herein were presented in order to best explain,to describe particular applications, and to thereby enable those skilledin the art to make and use embodiments of the described examples.However, those skilled in the art will recognize that the foregoingdescription and examples have been presented for the purposes ofillustration and example only. The description as set forth is notintended to be exhaustive or to limit the embodiments to the preciseform disclosed. Rather, the specific features and acts described aboveare disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Reference throughout this document to “one embodiment,” “certainembodiments,” “an embodiment,” “various embodiments,” “someembodiments,” or similar term means that a particular feature,structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodimentis included in at least one embodiment. Thus, the appearances of suchphrases in various places throughout this specification are notnecessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, theparticular features, structures, or characteristics of any embodimentmay be combined in any suitable manner with one or more other features,structures, or characteristics of one or more other embodiments withoutlimitation.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: an asynchronous channelbased bus (“bus”); and a plurality of services configured to passmessages to and receive messages on channels of the bus; wherein the busis configured to: dynamically create, as one of the channels, a Galacticchannel based on a request from any of the plurality of services tocreate the Galactic channel, allow any of the plurality of services tosubscribe to the Galactic channel, transmit a first message associatedwith the request with the Galactic channel, and destroy the Galacticchannel.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the bus is configured torecognize an instance where the Galactic channel has no subscribers anddestroy the Galactic channel based on the recognition of no subscribers.3. The system of claim 1, wherein the Galactic channel defines a firstchannel of the channels of the bus, and wherein the bus is configuredto: transmit the first message with the first channel from a firstservice of the plurality of services to a second service of theplurality of services, the second service subscribing to the firstchannel, and transmit a second message in response to the first message,from the second service to the first service, with a second channel ofthe channels of the bus.
 4. The system of claim 3, wherein the firstchannel is a public channel and the second channel is a private channel.5. The system of claim 3, wherein the bus is configured to send thesecond message with the second channel based on the first servicerequesting a response to the first message be sent on a channel that isseparate from the first channel.
 6. The system of claim 3, wherein thebus is configured to create the second channel based on the firstmessage.
 7. The system of claim 3, wherein the bus is configured torecognize an instance where the second channel has no subscribers anddestroy the second channel based on the recognition of no subscribers.8. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computerreadable program code embedded therein that when executed causes acomputing system including an asynchronous channel based bus (“bus”) toperform a method comprising: accessing a plurality of servicesconfigured to pass messages to and receive messages on channels of thebus; dynamically creating a Galactic channel as one of the channels ofthe bus based on a request from any of the plurality of services tocreate the Galactic channel; allowing any of the plurality of servicesto subscribe to the Galactic channel; transmitting a message associatedwith the request with the Galactic channel; and destroying the Galacticchannel.
 9. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium asrecited by claim 8, wherein destroying the Galactic channel includesrecognizing an instance where the Galactic channel has no subscribersand destroying the Galactic channel based on the recognition of nosubscribers.
 10. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium asrecited by claim 8, wherein the Galactic channel defines a first channelof the channels of the bus, and wherein the method performed by thecomputing system further comprises: transmitting the first message withthe first channel from a first service of the plurality of services to asecond service of the plurality of services, the second servicesubscribing to the first channel; and transmitting a second message inresponse to the first message, from the second service to the firstservice, with a second channel of the channels of the bus.
 11. Thenon-transitory computer readable storage medium as recited by claim 10,wherein the first channel is a public channel and the second channel isa private channel.
 12. The non-transitory computer readable storagemedium as recited by claim 10, wherein transmitting the second messagewith the second channel includes receiving a request from the firstservice for a response to the first message to be sent on a channel thatis separate from the first channel.
 13. The non-transitory computerreadable storage medium as recited by claim 10, wherein the methodperformed by the computing system further comprises creating the secondchannel based on the first message.
 14. The non-transitory computerreadable storage medium as recited by claim 10, wherein the methodperformed by the computing further comprises recognizing an instancewhere the second channel has no subscribers and destroying the secondchannel based on the recognition of no subscribers.
 15. A methodperformed a computing system including an asynchronous channel based(“bus”), the method comprising: accessing a plurality of servicesconfigured to pass messages to and receive messages on channels of thebus; dynamically creating, as one of the channels of the bus, a Galacticchannel based on a request from any of the plurality of services tocreate the Galactic channel; allowing any of the plurality of servicesto subscribe to the Galactic channel; transmitting a message associatedwith the request with the Galactic channel; and destroying the Galacticchannel.
 16. The method as recited by claim 15, wherein destroying theGalactic channel includes recognizing an instance where the Galacticchannel has no subscribers and destroying the Galactic channel based onthe recognition of no subscribers.
 17. The method as recited by claim15, wherein the Galactic channel defines a first channel of the channelsof the bus, and wherein the method further comprises: transmitting thefirst message with the first channel from a first service of theplurality of services to a second service of the plurality of services,the second service subscribing to the first channel; and transmitting asecond message in response to the first message, from the second serviceto the first service, with a second channel of the channels of the bus.18. The method as recited by claim 17, wherein the first channel is apublic channel and the second channel is a private channel.
 19. Themethod as recited by claim 17, wherein transmitting the second messagewith the second channel includes receiving a request from the firstservice for a response to the first message to be sent on a channel thatis separate from the first channel.
 20. The method as recited by claim17, wherein the method performed by the computing system furthercomprises creating the second channel based on the first message.